Population Pressures

Posted by John Crandall Aug 28, 2007

Thomas Malthus was famous in Elizabethan England for theorizing that the population of a country, or an island such as Britain, was determined by definite factors such as geographical space, and food production capabilities. Population pressures unabated were certain to lead to emigration. In the England of the time of colonizing America there was surplus population. Many of the unemployed, under-employed, or impoverished emigrated to America as indentured servants. This acted as an outlet valve for excess population in the British Isles.

Once settlements in America had developed productive agricultural communities, America was more than just an outlet valve it was large unsettled country drawing on population surpluses of not only Britain, but Germany, the Low Countries, and even France and other countries to a lesser extent. The land use patterns and agricultural capacities of the native North American Indians were far different, and even the population they were capable of supporting was decimated by imported European diseases.

This trend continued throughout the colonial period, and on into the the mid 1800s accelerating dramatically through this later period. Time was to come when America despite being sparsley settled would consider immigration to be burdensome. Although I believe Malthus was largely correct in his theories, urbanization, and mechanized farming were to dramatically increase the amount of population that could be supported.